SOMALIA

Opening a tap that helps
keep children in school
It is midday and the classes are over at Dhabolaq
Primary School, southwest Somaliland. A few weeks
ago, at about this time of day, 13-year-old Hamsa
Abdi Mohamed would have been running home to
fetch water at the river, about five kilometers away.
But today, he and his friends are playing football, in
no hurry to go home. Panting in the scorching heat,
Hamsa dashes to drink water at the newly installed
tap outside his classroom.
“It’s like a dream, I can’t believe we have water this
close,” says Hamsa, who used to miss classes two
or three times a week to fetch water for his family.
“We use this water for drinking and handwashing,
we clean our classrooms, the toilets and sometimes
water the plants,” he explains.
Previously, a deep open well was the only source
of water for some 200 households in Dhabolaq
village. “The well served as the village’s lifeline,
but it was also a death trap for children,” says
Mohamed Mohamoud Ahmed, the deputy principal
of Dhabolaq Primary School. “Five children fell into
the well on different occasions. Two of them died
instantly, while three sustained leg injuries.”
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